• The Peladon "cast". Peladon featured twice in Third Doctor television episodes, once with Jo Grant and the second time with Sarah Jane Smith. A return to Peladon in Big Finish doesn't really come as a great surprise, but for me at least it was a pleasant one as I have a soft spot for both those stories, terrible costumes aside. So it's nice to see a return to the setting, as well as a look at familiar (if not necessarily the same) characters. Alpha Centauri is back, his/her high-pitched voice still a trifle annoying but at least not hampered severely by the rather awful (and suggestive!) visual of the costume. An Arcturan and an Ice Warrior are present just as they were in the televised episodes, though not the same characters as from those stories (only Alpha Centauri is that long lived), giving it a nice nostalgic feeling. There are all sorts of familiar elements that help to make the world of the story feel stronger, tied in nicely with the new elements such as the lessening economic power that Peladon wields, the growth of the "new money" Earth, and elements to do with Erimem and surprisingly an otherwise completely unrelated 4th Doctor story - The Pyramids of Mars. Not much time has to be devoted to introducing/explaining the world, allowing the writer (Barnaby Edwards) to focus on the actual plot. This does have its downside of course, in that you need to be familiar with these prior story elements or you could be a little loss... but I figure most Big Finish listeners have probably seen the Peladon episodes more than once.
  
  
• Peri. Even though she starts the story seemingly overlooked/left behind in favor of more of a focus on the Doctor and Erimem, she very soon comes into her own. Happily that's something the story does very well, all three of the main cast get plenty of stuff to do/their own little storyarcs going on. Peri's is particularly strong, as she accompanies an Ice Warrior Prince around the royal palace, slowly developing a friendship/respect for him that gets flipped on its ear when he suddenly becomes murderous. The way she talks her way out of the predicament is well handled, and leads to the redemption of the Ice Warrior (once again, we get to see the Ice Warriors as more than just a straightforward Who "monster") as the friendship/respect between them grows ever deeper. While all three of the main cast get their time in the sun, I feel like Peri gets the most interesting individual part, and that's even considering that this is Erimem's last story. Peri's closing line in particular is an absolute hoot, a great comedic turn to end an otherwise somewhat morose ending.
  
  
• Erimem's departure. This marks Caroline Morris' last Big Finish story as a regular companion, a development that was kind of given away in the bonus story on the previous release, which technically takes place AFTER this story. So going in it wasn't a matter of if Erimem would leave, but how. For most of the first three episodes, there isn't much to suggest that anything out of the ordinary is going to happen. Though she gets plenty to do, she doesn't at all feel like the focus and nothing seems to be leading anywhere... until the reveal of the main villain of the piece, at which point a lot of little things throughout the story comes together nicely and she gets to stand out a little more. In the end, it is Erimem who comes up with the plan to save the day, once again playing off things introduced earlier in the story, and her decision to do what she does feels very fitting and in keeping with her character. What happens next feels like somewhat of a copout, but given the nature of how many 5th Doctor stories ended, this epilogue actually feels somewhat like a nice change of pace. It does mean, however, that what was a strong in-character ending for Erimem turns into a slightly out-of-character and somewhat awkward departure instead. I say slightly, because previous stories have indicated it was something she was inclined to do (return to a position of authority out of a sense of duty) and it doesn't make the mistake that so many other stories did of having the companion suddenly fall madly in love with some character they barely exchanged words with. Erimem here frankly and openly says she will marry the Prince as a matter of convenience/duty, and her comment that fondness might one day turn into love doesn't sound wistful or as anything more than unexpected bonus - to the last, Erimem stays true to the values and mindset that you might expect of somebody from her time/upbringing.
  

• Erimem's departure. Given this is her final episode, it's harder to look at it in a vacuum. Her departure should probably be looked at within the context of her entire run with Big Finish, and how she fit in as a companion alongside the 5th Doctor and Peri. Though it was never anything as marked as C'Rizz's tortured run, I did feel like there was always a sense that the Doctor and Peri both were frequently looking for an out, some way to get rid of Erimem and move on without her. An unfair interpretation perhaps, and more likely down to the fact her status as a Big Finish creation meant writers could conceivably tease a departure/death in a way they simply couldn't for Peri. But it does put the ending of this story in a somewhat different light, as the Doctor seems all to eager to move on (repeating a line made by the 8th Doctor in a similar situation) and even Peri seems to be half-hoping that they can just clear out of there at last. The decision for them NOT to stay for the wedding feels odd, I can't exactly see why they'd choose not to be there, it's not like we needed the scene to play out in the audio, they could have agreed and then the next story would have started sometime after the fact. I don't think it was intentional, but I still can't help but feel that they're relieved to get back to the way things were before they met Erimem. That is even odder because half the time Peri and Erimem actually had excellent chemistry together and had a pretty great dynamic of sisterly affection for each other, and particularly enjoyed teasing the rather put-upon Doctor. But then you'd run into any number of times where either Peri or the Doctor started dropping less than subtle hints that maybe Erimem would like to leave now and they'd go on without her. Again, I don't think this was in any way intentional, but the way the stories were put together by various writers ended up painting the idea of a picture that wasn't really there.
  
  
• The end episode's heavy exposition. Throughout most of the story, things happen and the listener is kept informed by the context of the dialogue in conjunction with the sound effects. But in the final episode, suddenly we jump back 100 stories to the time when Big Finish just had the characters yell narration of what was happening because they weren't sure how to convey that information otherwise. The final battle with the main villain of the story is particularly guilty, as during a flurry of activity we get multiple characters yelling things like,"Oh well done you did the thing!" "Oh no now this other thing is happening!" "Quickly, go do the thing, okay great you've done it, oh but look now the baddie is doing this, we better duck before we get hit by that, phew that missed us, let's do this! Now we're doing it!"
  
  
• The red herrings. Throughout the story, multiple red herrings are thrown up as to what might be behind the troubles besetting Peladon. Some of these tie into later events and have some relevance, but others are there purely for the sake of being red herrings, with perhaps the most blatant being the Arcturan attempting to run an illegal mining operation under the noses of the authorities. That subplot gets significant time and attention with plenty of moments where one character or another speaks to themselves in sinister tones suggesting some deeper game is being played.... and then it just ends. A bunch of people die, somebody gets captured and then.... nothing. It goes nowhere and has only the most cursory impact on the actual main plot (the revelation of some writing providing the link between Earth and Peladon). In the end, it feels more like filler, only there to pad out the running time. Considering this story has returned to the 4 episode format that's kinda funny, because cutting out the subplot and reducing the story to a 3 episode structure would probably have made the plot feel tighter.
  

Fair Bear Maiden fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Sep 19, 2015